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3 Support questions gone south
Hello Ya’all:
I recently had to contact Avid with 3 support issues – one with a brand new product, two with an older one which is still available.
1) I just bought an Avid/Pinnacle Dazzle Video Creator Plus HD. This is a USB capture device with analog/S-Video capture device and includes Studio HD 14. I am capturing video from an Xbox 360, and am using S-Video. To sum it up, when capturing with S-Video, the video is checkerboarded – every even pixel on even numbered scan lines is black, and every odd pixel on odd numbered scan lines is black. When I contacted their tech support, they said to use the composite connection instead of S-Video, because S-Video has never been tested with the Xbox 360. My jaw is still on the floor. It does seem to work with composite, but despite the product name, will never be HD – farthest from the truth.
2) I have a Pinnacle Video transfer. I sent in a support request the week after I got it, because there is a USB Type B connector which isn’t documented. I was hoping the USB Type B connector would allow a connected device to pass-through to a computer. When I sent in the request, I got no response (i.e. “khhhh – reception bad – khhh – can’t hear you”). I sent in the question again, and get a response that the product is no longer supported (although I could go and buy one new locally). This isn’t critical, but is probably such an easy answer for them. If it’s something “super-secret,” just tell me it is reserved. If it does what I want it to, it’s value-added to the product.
3) Also on the Pinnacle Video transfer. If I attach an Iomega 320GB USB 2.0 hard drive (or a very fast USB 2.0 device), when capturing, audio goes out of sync with the video. If I attach a PNY Atache 2GB USB 2.0 key (which is not especially fast), video and audio remain in sync. The response will make your day (guaranteed). For starters, there is no difference in the pinout of the USB Type A connector each device has, however Avid’s response was: Different pins are used on the faster device than the slower device. I sent them the USB 2.0 pinout, and they corrected themselves and said different pins were used on USB 3.0 than USB 2.0. It still doesn’t answer the question: With 2 different USB 2.0 devices, why does the slow one work and the fast one not work.
Lance
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4 Replies
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Correction/update: Composite video captured with Studio 14 HD is also missing pixels from odd/even scanlines.
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As far as I know USB doesn’t allow for multiple devices through one wire, so a pass through seems unlikely.
USB3 has 8 pins as opposed to USB2’s 4 pins, so it’s more accurate to say that it uses more pins rather than different ones (it claims backwards compatibility so I guess that it’ll work over a 4 pin cable but you’ll only get USB2 speed if you do).
The speed of a drive is much more complicated than the speed of the link (the USB connection). This may sound odd if you don’t know some of the more arcane technical details, but drives connected by USB 2 at 480Mbps are usually not fast enough for reliable use as video media storage whereas drives using Firewire at 400Mbps usually are.
As a hard drive holds data in a buffer (memory) while it spins a physical mechanism and an SSD writes directly into memory, plus the discussions over brand X’s class 6 SDHC being faster than brand Y’s Class 10 one, I’m not particularly surprised about your experience with the memory stick being quicker than a USB hard drive for this particular kind of file.
I don’t know anything about your Dazzle device, sorry. I’d say it’s either faulty or it doesn’t fulfil the claimed function and ask for a refund if it were mine.
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Hello Andrew:
Both devices are USB 2.0 – the slower speed device works (PNY). The faster speed one (Iomega) doesn’t – I wanted to find out why so that I could tell what higher-capacity device I could get. The Iomega 320GB USB 2.0 hard drive has 4 pins on the USB Type A connector, the PNY Attache has 4 pins on the USB Type A connector – both pins are +5V, Transmit, Receive, and Ground. I don’t know where USB 3.0 comes into the picture, and wasn’t part of my support request.
Lance
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Hello Ya’all:
Here’s what transpired over the weekend: Avid requested that I upload them a sample of the video with the problem. I did so and didn’t hear back from them. The local Fry’s Electronics had a video capture device for sale which claimed to do the same thing, but for only $14.99. I got it, and it worked perfectly – this indicates to me that there’s nothing wrong with my source and nothing wrong with my computer or software. My response to Avid was as follows:
In lieu of a response, I purchased a competitors’ product: It is a Siig USB 2.0 Video Capture Device. It does what yours can not – capture NTSC standard-definition video. I can capture S-Video or composite from the Xbox 360 to USB, and there are no pixel problems. Their software also edits the video and can burn DVDs. It was $14.99. I am hopeful, that as the leader in the video industry, selling video editing systems for up to more than $100,000, that someday you will learn how to capture NTSC standard-definition video.
Lance
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